Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning


Oct 22, 2008: Adventures in the Duke Gardens

Where we walked:

This is the School of Engineering - the beginning of my training and career. Electrical Engineering starting in 1959

oct 22 1891 engineering

This is the Levine Science Research Center - housing the Computer Science Department (at the end next to the road). This was the end of my first term at Duke (1997).

oct 22 1678 lsrc ended

First a distraction (of spider proportion). Behind the LSRC is the Free Electron Laser - buried. There are stairs leading up to a parking lot and on each side are some bushes. There are funnel webs on these bushes. These spiders are quite shy and timid and the slightlest movement sends them racing into their funnel - to their hiding place. Here is the web and you can see a blurred image of a funnel web spider and two legs in her hiding place -

oct 22 1727 funnel web

and with a bit of patience, the owners show their faces. Here is one of the funnel spiders - only seen by those with curious eyes.

oct 22 1689 funnel spider

Here, look closely and you can see her eyes

oct 22 1732 funnel eyes

And here she is hiding

oct 22 1738 funnel hiding

A funnel spider with dinner

oct 22 1907 funnel prey

Eyes of a funnel spider

oct 22 1910 funnel eyes

This is Xiaobai - my close friend and colleague of 20 years. She is a super star in numerical methods and helped me through many exercises to better understand the stability and accuracy of procedures I was using (studies of propagation in excitable media). She thought a long afternoon walk through the Duke Gardens would be a pleasant distraction from work. Here she is and what we saw.

oct 22 1743 xiaobai

At the Duke Garden - was this big bird

oct 22 1763 big bird close

Another view

oct 22 1764 big bird

ANother view

oct 22 1779 big bird

Flying - nice reflections

oct 22 1868 flying reflections

A white flower

oct 22 1790 white flower

One of the several ponds in the Duke Gardens

oct 22 1796 pond bridge

A spider azalea

oct 22 1798 spider azalea

Banana plants in Durham? Impossible, but here is the data

oct 22 1799 banana flower fruit

The flower and miccro-bananas

oct 22 1803 banana flower

Another view

oct 22 1806 banana flower

A red rose that plays tricks with the image sensor of my camera

oct 22 1814 red rose

A pink rose

oct 22 1819 pink rose

Another pink rose

oct 22 1820 pink rose

White rose

oct 22 1822 white rose close

Two bees harvesting pollen

oct 22 1824 white rose bees

Santa Cruz Pan Plants (Victoria cruziana)

oct 22 1834 pan leaves

A cluster of platter plants

oct 22 1872 pan plants

A single platter plant

oct 22 1874 single pan

A juvenile Victoria lily (Victoria cruziana

oct 22 1877 pan plant

With the flower

oct 22 1878 lotus pan

Purple lotus

oct 22 1838 purple lotus

Yellow lotus

oct 22 1840 yellow lotus

Entrance to the CHinese Garden

oct 22 1843 chinese garden

A white flower

oct 22 1848 white flower

A Japanese walk way

oct 22 1858 japanese walk

A white flower

oct 22 1866 white flower

Walking back through the campus

oct 22 1882 visitors arch

An arch with visitors

oct 22 1883 arch visitors

Walking by IGSP (Institute for Genome Science and Policy)

oct 22 1887 walkway igsp

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C. Frank Starmer

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